One Shot
by DagonSt
Summary: Sparrington one-shot. Tortuga, a sea of rum, and unfortunate encounters. Written after AWE, but set between CoBP and DMC.


He hasn't been quite sober since the ship - he can't recall its name now, only the masts and sails - glided out of the harbor, bound for Port Royal with his resignation and sword. The Admiralty had given him a uniform, accommodations - but no ship, no men, and he couldn't pretend he deserved them. Less than a week later, he sailed - a passenger, for the first time in his life. He washed up in Tortuga, where no-one looked twice at his coat, nor believed for a second he was a British officer. Hard to imagine what a born showman like Jack Sparrow saw in the place.

You can lose money fast in Tortuga, and Norrington does, in a haze in the better establishments. Later, it'll go by the penny, doled out on strong drink and the other accoutrements of degradation.

* * *

"Commodore!" The voice friendly and familiar, the hand on his back overly so. It's too late for him to think of anything clever, but he turns to glare at the interruption. "I am not a commodore," he enunciates, and Jack Sparrow's eyes widen an instant before his mouth grins.

"My mistake. You can call me Captain."

"The devil I will," Norrington mutters, turning away and roughly freeing himself of Sparrow's arm. The pirate only slides up next to him, hardly ideal. He's one fight away, at best, from being asked not to come back here. And he can't touch Jack Sparrow in Tortuga, there's no justice here to bring him to; better to ignore him. And drink himself sick enough to not think about it. He remembers, but only vaguely, the last time anything seemed ideal, and how that turned out.

More rum comes, Sparrow chattering away like a monkey all the while. Norrington keeps his head down, and catches two words in three. No doubt it's very entertaining; but every time he looks up, Jack meets his eyes. As though his dingy linen and day-old beard aren't enough to judge by. He's still going on - doesn't the man have duties? or friends? or a whore? - when the barman closes down. Norrington leaves without a word, concentrating on the doorway and getting through it.

Sparrow catches up. Norrington has made himself sick, doesn't get three streets away before the stifling air and last swallow of rum turns the clenched pain in his stomach to violent heaves. He crouches, shuddering, until he's regained control of himself. He feels deceptively better - cleaner. And realizes, then, that Sparrow must be there. Watching, when any decent person would just go away. He'll have to end this, Norrington realizes, and stop these half-measures. He wipes his mouth and stands, after a fashion, catching himself against the wall. Sparrow's an unmistakable blur against the torches.

So he's pulled onwards - not roughly, but half-blinded and as indifferent to where he's being led as to the spectacle he's making. Some less respectable hellhole, the Pearl, a darker corner to slit his throat in - all seem more likely than his own rented room. But Sparrow must have gotten the address from the barman. Norrington hasn't been robbed yet, reckless as he's been; if that's what Jack's after, he'll be well rewarded. There are bottles here, too, most of them empty. A low fire, against the nonexistent cold, gives them a dull glow. He drinks from the one that isn't - one last, for the night. Offers it to Jack, who's wrinkling his nose at the pistol on the table as though it's some exotic vermin.

Norrington leaves Sparrow to draw his conclusions and whatever else he's planning; struggles with the buttons on his coat, and finally throws it across the end of the bed. Proceeds to undress, edging around Sparrow, as though he didn't have an audience. Perhaps he doesn't; there's a suggestion of movement - bottles clinking, a metallic click - that Sparrow is amusing himself somehow. He doesn't look. He'll sort it out in the morning, and welcome unconsciousness in the meantime.

Sparrow grabs his arm, turning his step towards the bed into a stumble, and pins him against the table. Oblivion retreats under the assault: bent back with Jack close against him, buckles and trinkets digging in through his thin shirt, long fingers at his jaw. Not least the kiss, scattering every thought he could have mustered. His arm winds around Sparrow's shoulders of its own accord. The other lands, briefly, at Jack's waist, when Norrington forces himself to release his grip on the table's edge. They stay upright after all.

"You'll be alright, you know," Jack says inexplicably. "Once you hit bottom. Don't do that, now." He grips James's wrist, arresting a sweep of the table behind him. The gun's gone. He shouldn't have left it lying out here, too much temptation for anyone. The second kiss is – overly familiar, like everything else Sparrow's done tonight. And warm. He closes his eyes - against Sparrow and everything else. "It seems to me... all a friend can do is shove you down faster."

James kisses him a third time, to shut him up. He deserves - everything that's happened since the Dauntless went down without him. Now... this as well. He doesn't need Captain Jack Sparrow to tell him how disgusted he's going to be in the morning, and doesn't care how the pirate justifies it. But Sparrow is not, never will be, any friend of his.

* * *

Well after dawn, Norrington wakes with an unmoored sensation - none of it due to Jack Sparrow sitting near, waiting. "I should not be the one telling you this," he announces instead of 'good morning' or better, 'good-bye'. Jack leans over him, hand in his loose hair and lips at his ear. "Hope of redemption, James Norrington. If you want it badly enough, survive long enough... you'll catch up."

James jerks away to stare at the wall, and almost pulls his hand back from the heavy weight pressed into it. His gun; Sparrow's hand over his. "Then hadn't you better start running?" Sparrow pauses, fingertips light on his wrist. He adjusts the grip and raises the gun, eyes closed. The door closes, and he decides not to waste the shot.


End file.
